East Asian Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
AndyMeg
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby AndyMeg » Sat Aug 11, 2018 11:56 pm

indeclinable wrote:Japanese newbie here:

Is there a comprehensive list of basic words that are written in Hiragana (mainly because of lack of Kanji or because in mainstream media it's simple done "because")?

While surfing around beginners materials and websites (like this one or this one) I managed to catch some, but as a teacher I have to say I'm quite disappointed that such a resource is not more easily available as it would help immensely those of us that are still learning Hiragana and Katakana, specially to practice fast reading and identifying/memorizing words.

Is there an exercises book or page where transcription from Romaji to Hiragana/Katana exercises are available? (I'm thinking of something like this but you know, with more exercises).

Is anyone aware of Katakana to Hiragana and vice versa transcription exercises?

Not sure if this is close to what you are looking for, but it may help:

https://print-kids.net/print/kokugo/hir ... o-rensyuu/
https://print-kids.net/print/kokugo/katakana-card/

http://happylilac.net/kisetsu-sozai.html
http://happylilac.net/sk1808031402.html
http://happylilac.net/sk1808031408.html

http://sn1.e-kokoro.ne.jp/print/print_top.php?mid=2
http://sn1.e-kokoro.ne.jp/print/print_top.php?pageno=3
http://sn1.e-kokoro.ne.jp/print/print_d ... aino=P-018
http://sn1.e-kokoro.ne.jp/kyozai/print/ ... o-hyou.pdf
http://sn1.e-kokoro.ne.jp/print/print_d ... aino=P-009
http://sn1.e-kokoro.ne.jp/print/print_d ... aino=P-002

http://kids.nifty.com/study/hira_rensyu/index.htm

One of my favorite activities back when I was learning the kanas was to use japanese song lyrics and transcribe them from romaji to kana. And then you can verify your transcription with the use of the same version in kana or in normal japanese with furigana (small kanas above the kanjis to show their pronunciation). Here are some useful links for this activity:

Jpopasia

utaten

As an example, I chose for the links one of my favorite songs: "Kiseki" by "Greeeen".

Good luck! ;)

EDIT:
I just saw that you are a spanish native speaker, so, in case you are interested, there's a dictionary that has a katakana glossary near the end:

Diccionario básico japones-español
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indeclinable
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby indeclinable » Sun Aug 12, 2018 2:17 am

Thanks for your answers.

Just to clarify, I did not mean full texts written entirely in Hiragana that should have been written in Kanji. I meant just word lists... of words that are only written in Hiragana naturally (either because Kanji is outdated or simply doesn't exist). Like the suffixes さま, さん, ちゃん, くん.

I'm also aware of the children's books that are written in Hiragana, I did not mean that either. I meant stuff for grown-up foreigners to practice both Hiragana and Katakana...

Say for example, when I have a beginner's group in Greek, I don't mention accents or spirits, in fact I never really formally "present" the alphabet. I simply begin transcription games and teach them words that are identical or almost identical (angel = αγγελος) and have them memorize reading them so as to get them used to reading fluently (that is not having to decipher letter by letter). There's surprisingly a lot of such word lists for Greek. A week or so of this kind of exercises coupled with some games such as guessing, hangman or such guarantee that the students are able to read Greek fluently even if they don't understand what does the text say. It's much effective and enjoyable (for everyone) than having them memorize the relation of a specific letter with a phoneme individually.

That's why I'm looking for words that I'll find written in Hiragana always and no matter what in a manga, blog or a newspaper, otherwise the memorisation will make no sense.

Is there such a list?
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AndyMeg
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby AndyMeg » Sun Aug 12, 2018 3:46 am

indeclinable wrote:That's why I'm looking for words that I'll find written in Hiragana always and no matter what in a manga, blog or a newspaper, otherwise the memorisation will make no sense.

Is there such a list?

Words That Don't Have Kanji in Japanese

For katakana the dictionary that I mentioned in my other comment may be useful because of its glossary.

For hiragana I think your best bet could be mining them from frequency lists like these:

Wiktionary:Frequency lists/Japanese
A Frequency Dictionary of Japanese
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby smallwhite » Sun Aug 12, 2018 5:33 am

indeclinable wrote:Japanese newbie here:

Is there a comprehensive list of basic words that are written in Hiragana (mainly because of lack of Kanji or because in mainstream media it's simple done "because")?

While surfing around beginners materials and websites (like this one or this one) I managed to catch some, but as a teacher I have to say I'm quite disappointed that such a resource is not more easily available as it would help immensely those of us that are still learning Hiragana and Katakana, specially to practice fast reading and identifying/memorizing words.

Is there an exercises book or page where transcription from Romaji to Hiragana/Katana exercises are available? (I'm thinking of something like this but you know, with more exercises).

Is anyone aware of Katakana to Hiragana and vice versa transcription exercises?

There are online tools that convert normal text to hiragana-only text, as well as other conversions.
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vonPeterhof
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby vonPeterhof » Sun Aug 12, 2018 8:10 am

indeclinable wrote:I meant just word lists... of words that are only written in Hiragana naturally (either because Kanji is outdated or simply doesn't exist). Like the suffixes さま, さん, ちゃん, くん.

A nitpick, but seeing さま (様) and くん (君) written in kanji isn't at all unusual. In fact using さま in hiragana when addressing someone in official correspondence would be downright bizarre and might be seen as frivolous. くん does come up in hiragana quite a bit, but this might have to do with it being a common honorific for boys, meaning that it would be especially common in literature aimed at children where there is less kanji to begin with.
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indeclinable
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby indeclinable » Sun Aug 12, 2018 1:52 pm

vonPeterhof wrote:A nitpick, but seeing さま (様) and くん (君) written in kanji isn't at all unusual. In fact using さま in hiragana when addressing someone in official correspondence would be downright bizarre and might be seen as frivolous. くん does come up in hiragana quite a bit, but this might have to do with it being a common honorific for boys, meaning that it would be especially common in literature aimed at children where there is less kanji to begin with.


Thanks for telling me this. I took those words out of a the Words That Don't Have Kanji in Japanese, which is not thorough at all either. There's many well intentioned people out there that post their material and may unintentionally lead newbies like me into these sort of mistakes which is why I'm searching for a "professionally"-made list targeted for beginners.

Alas, I think that such a material does not exist :cry:

Anyway thank you all for your help.
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby devilyoudont » Sun Aug 12, 2018 3:04 pm

@indeclinable

So the reason this kind of list doesn't exist is for a few reasons.
--the typical "this kanji is too much of a bother to write" word is words for animals, and these words are typically written in katakana. Some very common animals can also be written in Hiragana and it's not weird.
--Words that completely do not have kanji are typically slang words, unsuitable for beginners. Or particles, which may be unsuitable for hiragana learners due to pronunciation irregularities or the grammatical function of the particle is probably too complex to convey to someone who hasn't started learning any grammar yet

That said, I took the liberty of making up a list.

My goals were:
-select common words
-select words that start with that kana where possible
-select words where it's not weird if the word is written in hiragana.

A lot of these words do have kanji. In some cases, the kanji is basically never used. In some cases, the kanji is rarely used, but you will learn it as you learn more Japanese. In some cases, kanji or hiragana may be used, maybe hiragana is more common in like casual messages or light novels or whatever, but in the context of a formal situation kanji would be used. 1 word on the list I feel like I see in kanji, hiragana, and katakana at about equal frequency (けが).

If this list is basically what you were looking for, and more experienced members of the group have no problem with the examples I used, I will maybe make up a public memrise and anki deck for this list for other people learning hiragana who may want a similar list, maybe in a week or two.

あ・あれ (that, far from speaker and listener)
い・いい (good)
う・うまい (skillful, delicious)
え・ええ (yes)
お・おもちゃ (toy)
か・かわいい (cute)
き・きれい (pretty, clean)
く・ください (please give me)
け・けが (injury)
こ・これ (this)
さ・さあ (well, umm)
し・しかし (however)
す・すごい (great, amazing)
せ・せめて (at least, at most)
そ・そう (so, in that way, thus)
た・たくさん (a lot)
ち・ちょっと (a little, just a minute)
つ・つまらない (boring)
て・てっぺん (peak)
と・とても (very)
な・なる (become)
に・にくい (difficult to... hard too...)
ぬ・ぬるい (lukewarm)
ね・ねじ (screw)
の・のど (throat)
は・はさみ (scissors)
ひ・ひどい (cruel, heartless)
ふ・ふるさと (hometown)
へ・へそ (belly button)
ほ・ほしい (wanted)
ま・また (again)
み・みんな (everyone)
む・むしろ (rather, instead)
め・めちゃくちゃ (absurd)
も・もらう (receive)
や・やさしい (easy)
ゆ・ゆりかご (cradle)
よ・よろしく (used in a lot of set expressions for greetings)
ら・らーめん (ramen noodles)
り・あまり(not very, not much)
る・する (do)
れ・それ (that, near the listener)
ろ・ろうそく (candle)
わ・わかる (understand)
を・を (marks the direct object)
ん・かばん (bag)
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indeclinable
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby indeclinable » Mon Aug 13, 2018 2:50 pm

Yes, thank you! That was exactly what I was looking for!

Incidentaly, I began listening to the Rhinospike recordings. Is there any Japanese version of the YouTube channel français en dialogue (yes, with Kanjis included)?
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Sarafina
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby Sarafina » Mon Sep 03, 2018 4:00 pm

indeclinable wrote:Yes, thank you! That was exactly what I was looking for!

Incidentaly, I began listening to the Rhinospike recordings. Is there any Japanese version of the YouTube channel français en dialogue (yes, with Kanjis included)?


This playlist is the superior version of what français en dialogue aims to do. I like the visuals and the cultural/further explanations are invaluable. It's a really good resource. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... pY75V4qE72

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... p4qDQIXinX
This is a playlist of common 1000??? sentences to become conversionally proficient in Japanese. The Japanese phrases is said first and normally but they also read out loud the English translation of the sentence using mildly annoying computer-generated audio. Luckily the audio Japanese sentence isn't computer-generated.
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Re: East Asian Study Group

Postby Arnaud » Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:48 am

A naive question (sorry if it was already asked). What level do you have when you've completed LingoDeer Japanese or HelloChinese ? Any idea ?
A1 ? Less ?
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